sometime around midnight
by xoVanilla-Bean
Summary: It's not so much about control as it is letting what you want take over. Dreams still persist in the faded reality. - SeiferQuistis


a/n; inspired by a lot of music - initially 'sometime around midnight' by the airborne toxic event. but then it changed to 'cameo lover' by kimbra, and 'heart's a mess' by gotye. you should go listen to them if you have the time! they're pretty grand. also - don't you love when you can write things without having to think about them? they just come out of you like they've been there forever, waiting for you? gotta love it. and happy late valentine's! as always, thanks for stopping by!

**sometime around midnight.**

* * *

><p>It had taken a lot of sleeping pills and a lot of liver depressants to kick start any semblance of life into Seifer's body. Blurry, incapacitating vision was significantly nicer than the sharpness of reality, but it was also, ironically, what made him wake up to the consequences. After a good night of under the table drinking, he'd always find himself in a place he didn't like being. An alleyway. The trunk of a car. He had woken up to a room full of cocaine addicts, most in deep, sedated sleep. There had been chunks of vomit covering his pants from the girl next to him, body angled toward his knees, dry crust bordering her lips and chin.<p>

Other times, he'd find himself in the conventional circumstances. He'd wake up next to a whore in some bed – hopefully, and usually, not his own. Or he'd wake up where he started drinking, with a bartender whacking him with a towel and blubbering something to get him out the door.

After a while, he decided that it was cramping his style. Seifer Almasy, though in love with parading around like an ass, found himself drawing a slow, crude line at self-pity. He liked pride. He liked his old swagger. And he knew it had all left him like a terrible rip at his side, like half a person missing. It was hollowing, made his face gaunt and without the eager fullness it used to have. But he was tired of being tired, and sick of being sick, so one day he looked at the bottom of his shot glass and sneered, and threw it across the room, hearing a gratifying shatter, along with the sticky, ugly shouts of the bartender and the stifling silence of the other patrons, all looking at him with wide-eyed shock. They knew who he was, the whole world did, but he didn't care about them. He wanted to destroy them all, once, and looking at all of them now, he still didn't give one fuck about them. He was better than them – had always been better than them – and he had become one of them for too long.

When he finally left those dark, dirty places, he knew it wasn't about hope or redemption or dreams, because that was all a little too flowery, a little too soft and rosy. Reality's an ice cold splash in the face, and if you couldn't get used to it, you'd surely drown at the shock of it. He'd keep the nightmares and the ugliness of the past, but that's what happens. He wouldn't be a pussy about it – wouldn't waste a single second of caring on it, because that's what somebody has to do, sometimes. He'd wake up in sweat and a pounding heart pushing at the cage of his ribs, but that's what he'd earned. Sometimes, one couldn't let the feelings of the world bother him. He preferred finding the lost part of himself, and shaking his hand, and slowly come to watch out and care for himself. He could do that. Sometimes, you're your own savior, and he knew that full well. He knew no one saved the knight because it was always the girl that needed the catch from the fall, and he sure as fuck wasn't going to be a damsel.

So he left, and he walked down a cobblestone path into town, down a road that he would make his. He didn't know if the direction was home, but he'd try to find it.

* * *

><p>And then he found himself in another bar, sometime later, because – for the life of him he hated to admit it but – he was lonely. The hands of humanity still held him at arm's length, some wary, some fearful, but the whores never did. They liked a good fucking, too, even if it was from a once possessed man. Some liked it. Some liked it a lot. Some didn't know who he was anymore. Some never knew him.<p>

He figured out he still had some charm left over from before, and after a dashing smile, he'd be able to grapple with any girl that fell for it. It'd puff up some pride – he'd gotten some confidence back. He felt his shoulders loosen in that easy arrogance he couldn't completely shed – not that he'd want to.

He still loved it.

He noticed a pull on it after some time – like he had boundaries now. Like if he pushed his egomaniacal tendencies too far, he'd be beyond repair. He'd break something inside. Whatever it was, it kept him sedated enough to only be a predator, some high link on the food chain, but not a ruler. And certainly not a king.

* * *

><p>On a night of lady killing, he had stumbled into a bar that was higher scale, one with higher standards than he was used to. It was spacious and didn't reek so much of smoke, as if it wasn't as tainted as all the rest in the surrounding area. Though, Balamb wasn't known for their lewdness in bars.<p>

It wasn't a white collar place, but the atmosphere held the bravado that it was. A band was playing in the corner on the upraised stage, people either crowding around like a concert or others dancing in the open spaces. The bar was a full circle, facing the people around it who didn't care for the music, as well as everyone else. The girls around it were holding champagne flutes and wearing glittery dresses. Some wore golden hoop earrings, while others preferred diamond studs. Some were alone, while others flirted with men whose gazes fell to their cleavage more than once while shoving more and more alcohol in front of them to take.

He studied the single girls as he sat at a vacant table, for once grateful that he had forgone his regular trench coat that night. The sweater was a little stifling, but he could manage. And he knew for a fact that he looked good in it, regardless.

There were girls with long, brown hair. One girl was sporting a tattoo that curled up to her shoulder from underneath a slinky dress, some abstract shapes that reminded him of flames. Another had short hair in tight curls, looking off to the band and the dancing couples a bit wistfully. Another girl had her back facing him, straight, pure blonde hair that reached just mid-back. Her stance was rigid, but the skirt had her curves looking soft, and her heels had her calves showing tone and definition. He hadn't landed a blonde in a while, and between her and the one with short hair, well, he had always preferred longer locks.

As he was about to stand up and make his way over, another man swiftly swooped in. He was clad in a uniform of some sort, hair a jet black with a blue tint under the lighting. He gently touched the girl by the shoulder and gestured to a table off to the side. The girl smiled at him, gracefully pushing out of her seat.

Seifer swallowed his loss, until he choked on it. His eyes followed Quistis Trepe, in heels and a dress, following demurely behind the man that Seifer was now able to identify wearing a SeeD jacket, rank sitting on the lapel, glaring under the dim bar lighting.

Their meeting, or date, rather, was boring. They talked, the guy smiled while she tried to smile back. The man didn't make any obvious moves on her by contact, and Quistis, unsurprisingly, kept her hands firmly in the place of her own, set boundaries. She wasn't wearing glasses, and though she was sitting with an ice pick up her ass, it was slightly more subdued.

Seifer watched them all night, though the interest level was passive at best. They didn't get up and dance, she didn't laugh, and when they got up to leave, they didn't hold hands.

It was typical. Trepe, still the stickler of fun, and still couldn't pick out a good guy if her life depended on it.

He went up to fetch the short-haired blonde, but stopped when he realized she was no longer there.

He frowned. Detached from Garden, and yet it remained to ruin his meager happiness.

* * *

><p>He found himself at the same vacant table a week later. There was a different band, this time, different girls that looked the same, brown, blonde, and even some red hair flitting around the floor. Their bracelets and trinkets clattered around when they moved, their faces a blur but their bodies sharp and stark against his irises. Seifer found that he liked the human body – faces were subjective, but the twist of a body was enticing…deceptive and loving all at once.<p>

He caught the sight of the same, straight blonde hair, standing alone at the bar, waiting. He almost wanted to go up and patronize her, to see what she would do. He quickly thought better of it, disgusted that he would want to play with Trepe and her heels and dress, when he could easily watch the disaster of another date from afar, without her knowing that he was looking on and surveying every move she'd make. It wasn't like in class here, where she'd place up her shield of being an Instructor. Here, he'd see a Trepe in her natural form, albeit in an unnatural habitat.

Though, he wondered, maybe frequenting bars was becoming more and more ordinary.

He snorted. That was highly doubtful.

When the mystery man with the black hair came to retrieve her, he fastened his hand to her lower back and guided her. He said something down to her, and she blushed lightly, and when they sat and talked, Trepe smiled a little wider, and it was less fake.

They still acted like they didn't know each other well, but the guy was getting bolder. He brushed his hand against hers across the table, and when they left, he tentatively tangled their fingers together. She looked down at them in wonder.

Seifer did, too.

* * *

><p>He was starting to get sick of seeing them after the third visit.<p>

She wore lip gloss that night, and she wore a red dress that had a cut in the back – a scandalous thing for Trepe, he was sure. She retained wearing heels, not tall ones, but heels all the same. She never tripped in them, like he imagined she would, and they made her tall and long. She was almost eye level with her date, though the shoes did make her ankles look like crystal vases – thin and vulnerable, but glittering like expensive décor.

When the man greeted her, he kissed her on the cheek. She smiled easily, and kissed him on the lips.

It was shocking, to watch her be so open - open just enough to see the cracks, to see the light trickle out of her eyes. They were a bright blue, one that shone against the dark backdrop of the bar, feeding off the attention she was receiving.

He remembered that feeling of attention – usually from her glares at him in class. But it was a delicious, fiery kind of attention. Where she would never look at him with affection, she would look at him with disdain, but if he was to ever guess what it was like to feel Trepe exude her affection, he was certain he'd choose the hate each time no matter what it felt like.

The man was grinning, his mouth shining from Quistis's lip pollen, and ushered her over to their table. They were slowly becoming accustomed to each other. He could tell by the way she'd tuck her stray hair behind her ear and how he'd listen to what she had to say.

The guy stood and pulled her over to dance. He couldn't hear it, but he saw her laugh, being dragged by the wrist into the throng of the floor.

He wondered how much alcohol it took to get her to be so loose, but those thoughts were quickly overtaken by the ones that said she reminded him of a little girl.

Her hair became tangled and disheveled after minutes and minutes, and the man brushed it out of her face and kissed her soundly, and they both paused in the middle of a drumbeat.

Seifer stared into his glass, then to the bar. He caught the eyes of a girl with big, brown eyes, and they looked just like the rum he was holding.

And when the couple left, he was angry at himself for being angry that she hadn't noticed him like he noticed her.

* * *

><p>He kept going. It was because, though he hated running into them, he wouldn't let them run him off.<p>

The fourth time, they decided to forgo dinner. Instead, he saw them order a bottle of tequila and trade off shots with one another.

She had a sly look about her, half-way mischievous and half-way knowing, as if she was the one who brought up the challenge, and he was there to guard his dignity.

The guy tried to match her stare, but he failed. He couldn't compare.

And once one shot turned to twenty turned to forty, both were so far gone that they laughed at everything and nothing. When Quistis tried to walk, she slipped on those fragile ankles, and fell with a hard thud. Her foot had twisted at a painful angle, but she laughed at the funny way it looked, grabbing at the guy's leg and pointing at him for him to see it, because wasn't it the strangest thing you ever saw?

The man gave a deep chuckle, but he whispered something toward her, more sober than Quistis, eyes concerned where hers were filled with mirth. He crouched and rolled her into the crooks of his elbows, while she half-heartedly fought against him, slurring something about not needing anyone to carry her around. The man rolled his eyes at her, laughing, and said,

"Even the best of us need someone to help them, Quis."

She whined, very un-Quistis-like, and told him how absurd that notion was.

And then they disappeared through the door of the bar.

It seemed even Quistis had found the knight she wanted. He remembered her quiet desperation for one, all those years ago. She looked to Squall, because he must have looked fucking dashing to her, with his stoicism and awkward social graces.

And crushed, she looked nowhere else.

The Trepies were persistent bastards, if nothing else, overlooking her heartbreak and turning it into an optimism. He absently wondered if that SeeD was a Trepie, back in the day. If he still was. He wondered if he'd screw her stone heart tonight, open her up and see what was there.

If Seifer was honest, he had wondered what that would be like. To hold her heart in his hands and break it open, just to see what was inside, what would leak out and fly out and hide away.

He wondered who she was _now_, because she had been such a fake statue as an Instructor, and he knew he never knew who she was. He hadn't cared much, but he observed and thought and speculated. It was much more interesting than basic SeeD protocol.

And now the girl who had gotten shit-faced – if _she_ was Quistis, he wondered who Seifer was, always wasting time and wasting breath.

* * *

><p>The nights that he would watch them, he'd never take home a girl. That one day, every week, became routine. He'd watch them instead of the makeup stains on the walking breasts and ass, and he was scared to ask himself why, because it was pitiful and disheartening and if he found that he cared about what that couple did, then he'd really <em>lose it.<em>

If he wanted what they had instead of faceless bodies, then he'd really screwed up somewhere along the way to recovery. He'd gotten his other half back, that swagger, that thing that disappeared, and none of this bothered him on the days he didn't see them. But when he did see them, they made him feel shitty and…lost. Like he was living all wrong.

It was disconcerting.

* * *

><p>He began to lose count. He started to consider them as a regular presence on his Thursdays, even if neither noticed him.<p>

Seifer had wanted to go up to Quistis when she was at the bar, in that lapse of time where the guy didn't exist, yet. He wanted to go up and shove her shoulder, tip his head cockily, show her – somebody – that he was still Seifer Almasy and always would be. But he could never build up the nerve in time. Then the guy would be on her like a bitch in heat, pawing at her like she was his favorite chew toy.

It was kind of disgusting. Were couples always like that?

When they sat down that night, something was different. The way they looked at each other, the glint of their teeth in their smiles.

They didn't finish their dinner, and they didn't stay to dance. Instead, they were hungrier for the other.

Seifer realized he'd never felt that pervasive madness for another, when he wasn't possessed by something else.

He figured that he wanted her, wanted whatever they had, because Quistis wasn't glaring at him anymore. It was different, and he wanted attention that didn't slash at his back or his mind or suck out his control. She almost looked happy here, under the light and across the room from him.

Happiness was always like those blurry faces surrounding him – subjective and deceptive, and if he believed enough…_just right_. Then again, he wasn't one for believing in much. It was easier to let fleeting feelings be fleeting. Heightened, lengthy emotions made him want to scream, like leaving a hand on the burner.

* * *

><p>Daydreaming about Quistis was not something he wanted to do. But he'd do it.<p>

And since he did it, he stopped going to that one bar on Thursdays, and he stopped going to bars altogether, and he focused more on all those engines he'd fix for that small little car shop near the beach, because saltwater tasted and felt and smelled a little like he could do anything without consequences – for at least a while.

Soon, he forgot the tilt of her nose. He forgot what she looked like drunk. So he went back, wearing that sweater he wore the first time.

When he pushed through the doors, he wished he hadn't, hadn't done any of this, because it had been in the hopes of _something, _and he wasn't sure if he was controlling himself any longer._  
><em>

And who was he kidding? He was aching something fierce for her stagnant attention. All the other girl's eyes weren't as cutting as hers. Hers scarred and pressed deep in the flesh.

She was alone, as she always was at the beginning of the evening. He walked over to the space beside her and fell into a stool.

"Instructor," he said.

She flicked her head to him, eyes widening, then shrinking back to normal.

"Seifer," she said, shifting inward slightly, as if protecting her drink. "What are...how are you?"

She was uncertain, faced with something she wasn't prepared to expect, like he was one of those quizzes she used to study so hard for.

"Dandy," he said, sarcastic, glancing to the door to make sure it was still closed. He didn't have much time.

"Listen," he started. "I'm going to make you a deal. When lover boy comes in to take you to your table, tell him no, and I'll buy you a drink."

She blinked at him, hand crushing against her glass. "What?"

"See what he says," he said, smirking at her as if his heart wasn't beating terribly.

She shook her head a little, finding her footing in words. "Why?"

"Why what?" he demanded, swallowing the shot he grabbed from the bartender. "Still as strikingly spontaneous as ever, I see."

She pursed her lips. "Who are you to know what I'm like?"

"Trust me," he almost laughed. "You're not a mystery. You're just like any other girl with a stick up their ass."

She looked as if she'd slap him, or punch him, or both. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I asked your opinion."

"Could've sworn you wanted it, though."

She took a drink to occupy herself, he was sure. "Can you please leave?" she asked in restrained politeness. "My _lover boy_ will be here soon."

"Uncomfortable, Trepe?"

"Don't make me laugh."

The flush in her face told a different story, and so did her instructor's glare, and he relished it.

He glanced up to see the SeeD step through into the bar, hand fluffing his hair. Seifer grimaced and turned to her. "Remember. Tell him no."

He knew she wouldn't, as he went to the vacant table that waited for him.

When the man took her to her seat, her face was angrily puzzled behind her twisted lips and eyebrows, and because Seifer's presence was there now, and she was aware of it, she caught his eye more than once.

Before they left, he made a show of walking leisurely up to the bar, leaning toward a petite brunette. She glanced up through thick eyelashes and he grinned charmingly down to her. He said something about being bored of the band and the atmosphere, and she readily agreed.

He cut a glance at Quistis as he left, throwing over a smug smirk, while she watched them walk out over the man in front of her, frowning.

And he broke his tradition that night, hand at the small of the girl's back as he led her outside.

But she noticed him, now, and it made him flare up with that deep ire he'd always hold, deep in his heart.

He wondered if she would have seen him, sometime later, sometime soon.

* * *

><p>She sidled up to the chair in front of him that had always remained vacant. She took a seat without preamble.<p>

"You never told me how you were," she said.

"I said peachy," he said back, pointedly looking around the bar.

"You said dandy," she corrected, rolling her eyes. "How are you really?"

He almost scoffed. "I'm great. Women flock to me, and I get to watch the Balamb sunset every fucking night. What could be better?"

She tapped her fingers on the table. "Actually, I think _you_ flock to the women."

He sneered at her. "Is that your way of calling me a whore, Trepe?"

She shrugged easily, hiding a smile. "If I can deduce from all the times I've seen you here, I can logically piece together that I'm the first woman to walk over to your table and take the time to talk to you."

"Stop trying to act smart," he bit out. Because she wasn't smart, but an awful genius.

"It's called an observation."

Tired of not being able to answer cleverly, he said, "So where's lover boy?"

"Adam, you mean?" she corrected. "He's in a meeting. He might not be here for a while."

"Oh, so you decided to come harass me instead of being alone?" he gasped. "Shocking."

"I was only trying to be polite," she admitted. "But I must have forgotten who you were for a second."

"Ouch," he shouted. "Your remarks burn."

"Stop being so immature," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"You should stop being so pathetic," he spat back. "Wasting your time here doting on some guy who always comes in later than you. What's the point in waiting?"

"Contrary to what you must believe," she started, glaring, "I like it here. It's nice. Not even you can ruin it."

"You mean you like staring into the bar counter doing nothing? Again. Pathetic."

Her eyes flashed dangerously. "I can appreciate the essence of being by myself for a while. I'm not like you, who thrives off of human contact to hide the fact that you can't stand being lonely."

She'd hooked him where, surprisingly, it stung.

He bared his teeth. "Got it all figured out, don't you? Can't say I'm proud."

She blinked at him, frowning. "Can you be serious for five minutes? At least?"

"Are you kidding?" he said. "Where's the fun in that?"

She looked up at that moment, glancing at the person who walked into the bar. Her eyes lit up and a smile graced her features as the conversation they were having leaked out of her ears.

As she was excusing herself from his table, he called out, "Remember. Tell him no."

It seemed, as smart as she was, she couldn't figure out why he kept telling her that.

* * *

><p>He was a loner by nature, but she was right. He liked the presence of people, even if he hated the person. He'd gone through lengthy periods of time without needing to talk to anyone, but he didn't much care about that isolation of being quarantined from social contact. If he was by himself, truly by himself, he could hear things that no one else could hear. The shadows under his bed would lift up his covers and make their home right up against his side.<p>

So, no. He didn't like being alone. Superficial interaction, he liked. Intimately, he didn't care. But alone. He couldn't stand it.

* * *

><p>"Long time, no see."<p>

She was always so…perky when they began to speak. He was always able to pat it down after a few minutes.

"Yeah, sure," he said, staring at the rim of his glass. "So. Getting married?"

She blanched. "What?"

"You know. That thing people do when they don't care about living anymore. When they're_ in love_."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course not."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty absolute."

"I just…I'm not going to get married."

"Ever?"

She shook her head hesitantly. "No." She sounded kind of sad.

He leaned forward a little. "What about that guy you always come in with?"

She evaded his gaze, staring uncertainly at a point to her side. "I don't...We've - we're..."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't hurt yourself."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're the one who asked."

"You usually don't give any answers that count."

A red filled up the apples of her cheeks, but she bit the side of her mouth and said, "Maybe you don't listen."

He ignored her and mulled over the concept instead. "Huh. It's funny, though. You're too much of a prude to _not _get married."

She gave him a heated glare. "I'm _never_ getting married."

He shrugged his shoulders back, shaking off her eyes and her finality. "Yeah, well. Join the club." He raised his glass in a mock toast, and downed it without tasting.

It took her a while to erase the glaze in her eyes. "You're right. Who in their right mind would want to be stuck with you the rest of their life?"

He laughed loudly at her. "My dear Quistis. It's not the girls that wouldn't want me. In fact, there's plenty who would love to have me. I'm the one that's picky."

She sighed, and ended up playing along.

"Oh, right, how could I miss your charm."

"No clue."

She tucked a piece of stray hair out of her face, glancing around habitually toward the door behind him. "So, pray tell, what kind of girl would be so lucky to have you?"

He leaned forward, lifting his lips around his teeth in a grin, and trying to get her to look at him, though he wished it didn't make him so annoyed. He had too much pride left over to admit to himself that he needed her to look at him. Any stray attention she'd give to the bar, he'd hungrily pounce on to regain it all for himself.

When she finally complied to meet his eye again, he said, "She's almost a sorceress. She's full of ice and insecurities and all these flaws that aren't flaws at all. She'll have unbreakable pride, but it'll be all in vain because she can't even like herself. And once she can see how much greater she is compared to everyone else, I'll marry her."

Quistis was staring at him thoughtfully, though a bit guarded, as if she couldn't tell if he was admitting something like truth to her. She was staring at his lips as if waiting for them to give away the lie.

"That's a lot to look for, in a person," she said slowly.

"No, it's not. If people knew who they wanted to be and tried to be who they wanted to be, everyone would be extraordinary."

She bit her lip, staring down to a long dent in the table. "Why would she be like a sorceress?"

Seifer leaned back in his seat, staring down at her in turn, eyes burning into her skull. "She can find a place in my head, and I can't get her out."

When her boyfriend walked through the door, it took her a few seconds longer to leave the table.

"Remember. Tell him no."

He didn't flock up to a woman that night, after he watched her back say goodbye, bundled up in her pretty white dress.

* * *

><p>He started to arrive earlier a few times, just to see if he could beat when she got there. It took a while to get it right, where he arrived minutes before she did. It'd usually give them an extra moment or so to talk or stare at each other before the boyfriend swooped in.<p>

He stopped telling her to tell Adam no after a while. He cut it back to saying 'Remember', then cut that out, too, completely. Persistence only got one so far before it just made them angry. After all, one thing could only be repeated so many times before it became routine, and Seifer was getting pretty good at breaking things that got too natural.

He began to dance with girls on the floor now. He listened to their tittering and what they had to say, but sometimes they flicked their eyelashes around too much, and they didn't have many interesting things to talk about. Conversation starters were readily exhausted and a social convention to pass over as they would usually get to what they really sought after later.

But then, Seifer had begun to stray away from the bars and the girls. This was the only bar he came to, as of late, and he was starting to think that maybe he did flock to the girls, and maybe he did start the domino effect that he always didn't care to think back on.

So he'd arrive early at his table, mostly to preen at Quistis flocking to _him_, instead.

* * *

><p>It was in March when it happened. Quistis, with bloodshot eyes and red cheeks, trying with all her might to hide away the disaster written clearly across her body, like pencil markings that wouldn't fully erase.<p>

Adam was in intensive care after a mission gone wrong. Things happen, and she knew that full well, but there was no amount of conditioning one could go through to make them not care about somebody who they'd already come to care for.

Seifer wasn't someone to hand out comfort – just as Quistis wasn't one to open up to just anyone. Neither knew how to fix anything that concerned themselves, but Quistis had always been good with others. Seifer wasn't good with anyone or anything.

So he bought a cheap bottle of whiskey in the hopes that they would drink the whole thing together. Because sometimes, the stupidest thing that could help you would, at the very least, give you a reprieve. Even if only for a night. It had helped him before, so why not?

She stared into the first cup with weak disdain. Her nose puckered up at the smell, but before he could demand her to just drink the damn thing, she picked it up and gulped it down. Her face contorted into a scrunched up scowl, and once she swallowed, she started hacking up a lung.

He grinned at her and poured another glass. "That's the spirit, Trepe."

Once she was shit-faced drunk and trying to leave, Quistis hit the corner of the table with her hip, laughing at the pain just as she had done at her ankle all those nights before. She tumbled into his lap and laughed some more.

He looked down at her for a while, while her body shook in laughs and maybe sobs. He grasped at her shoulders, and he steadied her carefully and pointed her in the right direction to the door. He could have – but he didn't pick her up and save her from her stumbling. He didn't act like some knight that he never was, because pretending, he had learned, _wasn't even close. _

He liked concrete things, nowadays, no matter if they were unobtainable. Those lasted. Dreams didn't.

And when he went to work the next day, smelling salt and ocean and oil grease, he didn't daydream, because he wasn't free from what he used to be free from. The consequences started, and his chest would tighten, occasionally.

It had been sometime...sometime late in the witching hours that he hated. It was when she wore lip gloss, maybe, when Quistis and Adam danced, maybe, when she twisted her ankle, maybe. When her crystal vase shattered on the floor and all that light from her eyes shined through it like broken shards, maybe. He didn't know about it, what had happened to him, until the hangover made him vomit up the all the nights wasted at the bar, when he watched it land in the old toilet and realized that he had bought her whiskey, and that they had shared it, hours before, and that she had confided in him with slurred words that didn't have any meaning behind them. She hadn't told him anything, and in return, he hadn't told her anything, either.

So he stopped daydreaming.

* * *

><p>She was a stranger now. Only, she'd always been a stranger. He'd never really known her. But the past months carried a weight in them. All those nights he stared at her made him start to believe that he found meaning in her actions. When she'd eat dinner, she'd act guarded. When she danced, she was alive with glittering eyes. When she got tipsy, she was still loosely graceful. She had a rhythm to her, and he noticed the things that didn't matter – like her facial quirks and how she'd almost wobble in her heels, no matter how many times she'd wear them.<p>

He had started warming up to her at a distance. It was…unfounded. He liked attention, he liked the rawness of breath near his face and the heaviness of staring into someone. Then again, it could have been the skeleton of that attention grabber still inside him. He'd been given multiple stabs of attention over the past years, and he wasn't sure if he liked it. But when he looked beyond that into the untainted past, he remembered thriving off of it, when he was a stupid teenager. He remembered the feeling he'd get when she'd glare daggers at him from across the classroom from her desk. He remembered the rush of half-hearted adrenaline seeking that push to send him over the edge. It was a fine frenzy, and a little chaotic, but if he ever loved something, it was that feeling.

But that feeling had been a little overused and wasted, over the few years.

And he hadn't garnered any attention from her like he wanted and needed to. It was a constant ache when he saw her, and it made him angry, so damn angry, when he acknowledged it. Hyne, he hated her.

Her, a stranger and a girl across the room, hanging off the sleeve of another man like a veiled portrait.

The only gratification Seifer got was knowing that the man wasn't able to lift the veil, either, though he did try.

Because after he nearly died, Seifer knew, absolutely, that she would never love him like she used to, if she used to. He was mortal, and breakable, just like everyone else, and she wouldn't let her heart look down from that bridge. Quistis was too fragile a creature to let her heart take a second plummet, to break again.

But it was just as well, he thought. It was her fault she would never lift the veil and show the world who she really was.

She'd break herself before she'd let anyone else, and it was probably because she trusted herself the least.

* * *

><p>There was a day that came, where she was alone, and she was alone all night. Adam didn't show, and for the few nights after, he remained stoically absent while she grew distant and closed off and lonely, lonely.<p>

The route from their tables had always been straightforward. Five feet at the most, cleared from any obstructions. It was a pitifully small distance to cross.

And if Seifer knew how, he would have.

"I told him no," she whispered to him, on her way out the door, in one of those nights. He couldn't remember when it was, because he knew it was important. If it wasn't so important, he'd have easily tucked it away in the corner of his mind. But it was significant, so he threw it away.

He watched her disappear through the door. He wanted to break something, but the glass wouldn't do.

Then he glanced down and realized something already had.

* * *

><p>The pieces were everywhere, but he put them in a trash bag behind his house, kicked it for good measure, and walked on.<p>

Walked on to somewhere.

This was the hardest part. He thought he'd be good at it by now, but the pieces were so sharp that they peered out of the bag and stared at his back as he wandered away. They teethed on him, on the sight of his retreating form so they could be strong once they peeled away the plastic that contained them.

He hoped nobody would find them there.

* * *

><p>It was a long time before he found himself in Balamb again.<p>

He'd been in Dollet for a while, finding another car shop to mess around in. He'd tried to take up bartending, because he thought he'd be good at handing out liquid misery. And since he had a lengthy grasp on how to make cocktails and mixed drinks. Usually, though, the people were happy when they drank, and still happy when they stopped drinking, and he found out that conversation with people cost him too much energy to expend and too much fake caring. In retrospect, he never was a really nice bartender. Many people had started evading asking him questions, much less seeking out advice about anything.

He tried out being a fisherman. Long days out at sea were humbling, but they'd always come back to land. After a while, he realized he'd rather be stranded out to sea forever than to come crashing back to solid earth. The sea was so vast and open with nothing in it, except for a few islands here and there. It was like someone could do anything there, anything in it. Someone could pull up rare gems, animals that should be extinct, fight sharks against the lines and win the battles. Someone could dive in and fill up with all the salt and unknown, and never come back up.

It was all a little too close. A little too close to what life used to be like before Ultimecia. It gave him a sick feeling of the past and of what things he hung onto, before.

When they docked for the season, he knew he'd never go back. It made him realize that he'd never given up dreaming, all this time. His life was too normal now, too sane, and after it all, _all of it_, there was still a thirst for something. A thirst that this must not be all of what life is. There must be something great, surpassing the itch of insanity, surpassing the trembling fear he'd always feel in those dark hours of night.

His expectations were relatively low, but he couldn't help wondering, even if everything in him told him to stop. He had to believe in nothing. Or else he'd set himself up for an assault of more failures.

He stumbled back into the car shop, tinkering with pieces and putting things back together. It didn't take him long to learn the procedure. Most of it was trial and error, but the manager would usually tell him the do's and don't's. The one back in Balamb was patient, a little too patient, and warm and always there. His name was Mike. He'd dealt with his kiddie tantrums over misplaced bolts and failings of when a car wouldn't start up, after days and days of work. He was a family man. Seifer had walked into his office once, to tell Mike he had to leave, to get away. He'd seen the pictures all around the desk and on a shelf. Seifer could tell Mike's wife had been a looker back in the day, and the daughter she was holding in between her arms was about seven or eight. They were all bright smiles and joy, and something for the man to get back to every day.

Mike's eyes were sad when Seifer told him. It was a strange thing to see, coming from a man Seifer barely knew, and a man who knew Seifer even less. They'd never talked - Seifer hadn't talked much about anything. Mike would be the one to talk about things - what he did back in the day, his younger years. Once he told him how he'd met his wife, only at the time, Seifer hadn't been paying much attention.

"She was a beauty. Kind of like those sand dollars you can find on those rare nights, washed up on the Balamb shore. They say sand dollars are going extinct, these days. Too many predators in the water, and they can't adapt fast enough, or so those scientist people say. Anyway, I met her one day on the beach, just standing there like a doll, waiting for someone to come up and notice her. After some push from my buddies, I went up to her, stumbled on a few lines. I said stupid things, like, "You go to Balamb High, right? I think I've seen you around," when Balamb High was the only high school and everyone who lived in Balamb went." Mike chuckled. "Apparently, she thought I was cute enough to go get ice cream together. I bought her a vanilla swirl cone and I ate chocolate. It was the best purchase of my life," he said, looking over to the spot on the beach where they met.

The man didn't get too far. It seemed, he'd lived all his life in Balamb with the occasional trip to other towns. But he was perfectly okay with that. His dreams weren't big, and they didn't need to be.

Seifer rolled his shoulder, laying underneath an uplifted car. "That's nice. Can you hand me a wrench?"

But the man, on Seifer's departure, told him if he ever needed a place to go, he'd still be there. Then he gave Seifer a small smile, and went back to the contract he was filling out for a contractor.

The manager in Dollet was much less touchy-feely. He was no nonsense, no bullshit, and if you messed up three times, you were fired. (Or so he said. Nothing really happened if you screwed up too many times. He'd 'forget' or 'overlook' things, if he liked you well enough.)

He didn't like Seifer much. Seifer had to walk on eggshells and couldn't complain when he needed to. He had to keep his tantrums at a minimum, and though it was hard at first, he started taking it out on the bolts and screws of trucks and engines that were stubborn enough to ignore his wrath. His need for gil exceeded the need to rampage, and strangely, it was a lot more soothing than giving himself away to all his anger. There was something free about it, like he had control over something, finally.

When he got off the train and stepped onto the cobblestones of Balamb, it didn't give him joy. It gave him a sense of calm. The sea always did that to him, even if the concept of it was a little daunting and hopeful for his tastes.

Balamb had a softer edge. Where Dollet was all buildings and smog, Balamb was fresh and open. His boots clapped against the streets like an applause. It was always welcoming, even if he'd never done anything there for him to gain the accommodations.

But most of all, Seifer liked Balamb the most because this was the place of many things. Of memories. Of the past that was before insanity, and because it was the place where he found the rest of himself. It was also the place where he broke into tiny little pieces, and somehow, though it made him resentful, he was starting to gain a certain respect for that. This place held everything.

When he arrived at the shop, Mike was there, as he always was. Time didn't seem to touch the place. It looked the same it did a year ago, with different cars in line waiting to be fixed.

"Hey, Mike."

Mike looked up, his eyes physically brightening on sight. "Seifer," he said. "You're back."

Seifer glanced around, that tingle of discomfort crawling up his fingertips. "Which one do I need to fix?"

Mike seemed to realize that Seifer didn't like grand welcomes. He put him to work with forced offhandedness and didn't ask him where he'd gone to or what he'd done.

"Someone was askin' around about ya," he said, breaking the working silence sometime later. "A pretty thing."

Seifer stopped and stared up at the bottom of the car. A lot of the joints were missing - pipes skewed and rusted. He had a bottle of oil next to him, to mend anything that was close to being salvaged. He rubbed at his forehead, before he felt a streak of slime from the oil stain his skin.

"Guy or girl?"

Mike chuckled. "Girl, o' course. Her name was Quistis. A pretty name, too. Pretty all around."

Eyes roving over all the mistakes in the car, he felt his veins burn in a flush of anger. Who did she think she was, trying to find him? He left for a reason. And she was turning herself into a pest, still not leaving him alone after all this time.

"She's been stopping by often. She hangs around, sometimes. She's got a deep interest in cars, believe it or not."

What did she not have an interest in? he found himself thinking, as he went back to viciously twisting on a pipe. If she didn't understand the basic concepts of something right away, she'd dissect it until it was stuck in a piece of her brain and would never leave.

"Oh, I believe it," he said, scooting himself out from underneath the car. He stood up and wiped his hands on his worn jeans, leaving black marks that wouldn't come out. "If she stops by, tell her I'm not here and that I'll never be here. Tell her I'm in Trabia or some shit, fighting Ruby Dragons and snow lions and saving the world."

He didn't wait for Mike's answer as he left the shop.

* * *

><p>It took a longer time for her to stop by than Seifer had previously imagined. At first, he'd prepare himself, his body keeping a tenseness that belied his nerves. Since his only transportation between his work and apartment was walking, Seifer looked over his shoulder often, on his trips to and from work, making sure she wouldn't surprise him, keeping his senses fully aware. He knew for a fact that if he didn't pay attention for a second, he'd miss a bob of blonde hair, off on a day walking into town, purely on a coincidental trip. It would be his luck. But after a few weeks of no sightings, no accidental run-ins, Seifer found himself relaxing, his shoulders loosen and his ridiculous nerves fading away. He didn't like how easily she could wind him up, even when she wasn't anywhere around, but he knew nothing good could happen when she inevitably came to find him.<p>

He heard the echo of boots, one day, enter the open garage. It was a foreboding sound, deep in their clacking against the floor. He sighed at the noise when he heard it, his shackles immediately rising in preparation for the storm. Her walk stopped right by the front bumper that concealed him from view. He listened to them tap a few times, until her patience left her long enough for her to say, "Seifer?"

He glanced at a loose pipe, lifting up his wrench to fix it. "What do you want, Trepe?"

"I wanted to know where you went," she said slowly. "You disappeared."

He twisted at the pipe more viciously than before, feeling the leak of oil splash onto his shirt. He glared at it, before deciding to pull himself out from under the car, using the bumper to roll himself out.

"What the fuck do you care? Cut the shit, Trepe. You'd only take the time out to find me for one of your skewed reasons – did you think I'd be a nice shoulder to cry on while you tried to fix yourself? Did Adam give you a good grudge-fucking and you couldn't stand it? Did you finally give into, dare I say it, your femininity and leave yourself vulnerable and in need of a fuck buddy?"

She watched him as he talked, and he glared harder. _"What?"_

"Did you? Did you want to?"

He blinked, sneering. "Want to what?"

She bit her lip. "Sleep with me."

"The fuck – " he said, more out of surprise than confusion. He decided to push himself back under the car in that moment, to stare up at the more forgiving view of broken pipes.

"Everybody at Garden wants to sleep with you."

"I asked about you," she said, her voice far away from his position. "Does everybody include you?"

"What does it matter?" he asked, frustrated. "Oh, it _doesn't_."

"It matters to me."

He pushed himself back out, tightening his jaw as she came back into view. "Well, _you _don't matter to _me_. Is that answer enough?"

She placed a hand on her hip, leaning forward a little to get a better view of him. "Is…that why you left? Because nothing mattered?"

"Yeah," he swallowed. "Nothing mattered, and nothing still matters. So let me ask you again. Why are you here?"

She stared down at him for a while, eyes calculating and solving, coming to a dozen conclusions in a matter of seconds. He never liked the look. It was as if she was taking all the information he didn't say instead of what he did.

"No reason," she said, straightening. Then she shrugged. "I guess I was just looking for a…fuck buddy, like you said."

He stared up at her, trying to figure out if she was serious. Her face was calm and lax, not giving away a single thing. His mouth was parted slightly for a while, until he finally said, "You came to the wrong place."

She crossed her arms. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Hm."

He rubbed roughly at his face, leaving yet another streak mark. "What?"

"You've changed," she said slowly. "I never thought a guy like you would turn down sex, even if it was from me."

He started to wonder if this was all some sort of twisted test.

"I don't fuck bitch instructors. You're a little too stiff for me, anyway."

"I don't believe you."

"I guess that's your fault, isn't it?" he said angrily, desperately wanting her to leave.

She kneeled down, her height dwindling down to an uncomfortable closeness. "Denial is unhealthy, Seifer."

"Denial?" he said incredulously, baring his teeth at her. "Is that what you think this is? What the hell is your problem – you come in here and act like some sort of relentless psychopath, and you expect me to – "

She cut him off by leaning over and kissing him. It was tentative, like an experiment, and all his eyes could see was the soft blur of her neck.

She leaned back, looking down at him and licking her lips uncertainly, her eyes contemplative with furrowed eyebrows, half hidden by the glare of her glasses.

"Shit," he hissed, hurriedly scrambling from his position and pushing out from underneath the car. He turned himself around and sat up, grabbing her face and kissing her hard, her hair falling out in continuous strands as he greedily pushed her against him.

She tensed before she relaxed, grabbing at his grubby shirt and scratching at his neck.

He turned her around and pushed her against the hood of the car – and he belatedly realized that they couldn't do it here, not with the garage doors open, not with Mike in the office –

She pushed him away, lips swollen, but eyes guarded and knowing.

"I knew you were lying."

He blinked at her reaction. "So?"

"I was lying, too."

Of course she was. He immediately back pedaled, though he was hot and heated _after all this time_ and he couldn't stop staring at her lips or inhaling her scent.

She stepped away from him, and from her compromised position between him and the car. She wrapped her arms around herself before she looked to the ground, unsure of what to say.

Seifer clawed his hands through his hair. "Then why the_ hell_ did you come here in the first place if it wasn't to fucking _fuck_?"

She looked up at him, shifting her weight on her feet.

"Besides just fucking with my mind. Hyne, I knew you were crazy, but..."

"Let's go eat lunch," she said hurriedly.

He looked at her, scowling and baffled. "Lunch?"

"Yes," she said, clearing her throat. "We can catch up, talk about - anything. Then we won't have to see each other ever again."

"What makes you think I'd want to spend time with you? Willingly?"

She stared up at him, openly showing how she could cut and see right through all his attempts to hide from her.

"Just once."

And even though he hated it, he followed her out of the garage like a dog on a leash. He waved a goodbye to Mike, and Mike looked on as if he knew everything that happened.

Seifer decided that he didn't like Mike, right then, because how could he know when Seifer wasn't sure of anything himself?

* * *

><p>"Where did you go, Seifer?"<p>

She led him to a small cafe down the street. It overlooked the shore, letting the sea breezes mash up against the windows in a salty caress. They sat at a table outside, an umbrella shielding the sun's glare from their eyes.

He had ordered coffee because the place didn't sell any beer. He went straight for the sugar packets when it arrived.

"Trabia," he answered.

"Trabia..." she said back. "To kill some Ruby Dragons and snow lions."

He hated Mike even more.

"Something like that," he said, clenching his jaw.

"Hm," she replied, sipping at her own coffee. "A year's a long time to be in one place."

"You're one to talk, staying at Garden all your life."

She stared at him for a while. "You're not going to tell me."

He sat back in his chair. "If I asked you what happened to you during the past year, would you tell me?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because I have nothing to hide." She paused. "What are you hiding? I can't believe you'd do anything too atrocious in a year."

"You don't know me that well, Trepe."

"My name's Quistis."

"Trepe...Quistis..." he said, balancing out each one. "Doesn't matter. You respond to each one, so they essentially mean the same thing."

"Maybe..." she said. She shook her head. "You have strange logic."

"And your logic is normal? Please."

"Maybe if you paid attention to me longer than what you deemed necessary, then maybe you'd have learned a thing or two about logic."

It's funny, he thought, how much he's honestly paid attention, and how as logical as she is, she doesn't know.

So he said, "I paid plenty of attention."

"I have a hard time believing that."

"Well," he said, grinning madly. "I know the angle you have to bend over to make your skirt rise just enough for me to see - "

She kicked him hard under the table, and he howled expletives. "Shit Trepe, lighten up."

She rolled her eyes. "I put too much faith in you."

"Why? Because you forgot I'm male?"

She puckered her lips before shaking her head and smiling wryly. "No. Because I thought..." then she frowned, staring into her cup. "I don't know what I thought."

His interest multiplied, suddenly. "Yeah you did."

She sharpened her eyes at him. "Well, now I guess you'll never know what I thought, and I'll never know where you were."

He sighed through his nose, dragging a hand up and through his hair. "I was in Dollet, alright? Damn."

"Dollet?"

"Yes, Dollet. Fucking shit up. That's all."

"Oh," she answered.

"Yeah, 'oh'. Now are you gonna tell me what you thought?"

He watched her bite the inside of her cheek. "No."

"What?"

"I never said I was going to trade you information."

She had to be joking. He felt his face heat up. "You can't - that's - "

She hid a smile, the only thing giving it away being the twitch of her lips. "You're not the only one who doesn't have to play by the rules, Seifer."

"Bitch," he said, sagging in his seat in anger. He swallowed his coffee quickly, as if it would abate his annoyance. "I hate you, you know that?"

She gave him a thoughtful look, before turning to her own drink.

After a few minutes of silence, Seifer said, "Whatever happened to lover boy?"

"His name is Adam," she said half-heartedly. "He's still teaching. Going out on missions. All the same things."

Seifer watched a few passersby roaming on the cobblestone path, riding on the ridge of the beach. The sky was becoming cloudy and gray, and the scent of a storm was brewing in the air.

"No," he said. "I meant, what _happened_ to him?"

She looked up to him. "Oh. Um, nothing. We just decided enough was enough."

"Ah," he said. "So that translates to, you broke up with him because he didn't fit. Right?"

She avoided his stare, frowning out to the clouds. "It was a mutual thing. It was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't - it's never concrete. We're - I'm a soldier. It's not supposed to be forever."

The stillness between them was a burn. He could feel the wistfulness there, almost taste it. "But you wanted it to be."

She shook her head. "He was a good guy. Things happen - we're still friends. It was just too much."

"Too much what?" he almost shouted. "Happiness? Hyne, get a grip, Trepe. You remember how to laugh, don't you?"

"Shut up, Seifer," she said, her voice low. "Just because you don't have one practical bone in your body doesn't mean you have any right to judge the things I do that I think are best for me. So just...stop."

"Who said I was judging?" he said after a few moments. "What if I just thought your choices were stupid?"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" she said, her voice rising. "That's what you said. You said I didn't matter. You said a lot of things, and I don't ever know what you lie about or what you say that's truth. So that's it. I don't care what you think."

He swallowed, smiling bitterly to the side. "Why'd you find me then? Why'd you make me come to this shitty cafe with you?"

Her composure seemed to be lost - like she was on the ground, desperately trying to find it. Her eyes held a dark fire behind them, and he could almost feel the smoke rising from her through the table that was between them. She wasn't very far away. Her hand was mere inches from his. It felt like that bar, all those days ago, when Adam and the whole world didn't exist and they talked about absolutely nothing at all. Just like now.

Except now, it was much more open. Seifer was scared of what she was going to say.

"I saw you," she said. "At the bar. I saw you before you ever saw me. You were at that lonely table, all by yourself, looking wretched and terrible and just a mess. And I never went up to you. I never did anything. I let you sit there and...rot."

Seifer closed his teeth around his tongue, feeling hollow. "No you didn't. There's no way you could have seen me there."

"Why not?" she said. "Because you wanted to see me first? Seifer, you were always there when I was there."

"So?" he said, and his voice was tightening. "Just because we went to the same place on Thursdays - "

"You looked at us a lot," she interrupted, shaking her head. "I saw you."

The pressure behind his eyes was beyond bearable, and though he tried to keep it back, he said loudly, "What do you want me to say? That I went just because I got to see you?"

She went very still at the rise of his voice. "Did you?"

"Fuck," he shouted, causing some people to glance over to him. "I don't know. Who the hell knows why I sat there and just...watched."

"But you finally came up to me."

He laughed in her face. "Not by choice," he said, unable to stop himself. "Just like now, and how I couldn't turn you down for - this," he said, gesturing to the shabby table.

"You could have said no," she said, her face perplexed, trying to keep up with him.

And he stared into her eyes, face going slack, losing all the sharpness that protected him all this time. "No," he said quietly. "No, I couldn't."

She stared back at him, each eye flicking to his right, then left, then right again, trying to find whatever it was she was looking for in his eyes instead of his words. Her face, in its contemplation, turned into a soft frown. He saw a small dimple appear, near the line of her lips. He saw the lump of her cheekbone, high on her face, and the stray hairs that always fell away from the straight waterfall of her blonde bangs.

He guessed he could tell her what he meant, if he knew how to say it.

"Seifer," she said finally. "What did you mean...when you always said to say no to Adam?"

He half-shrugged. "You were gonna break up eventually. I was just trying to speed up the process."

"That's kind of...nice of you," she said skeptically. "Why did you try to do that?"

Because he was at that lonely table, just watching like a bystander, like a stranger, like a creep. It didn't make sense, but a lot of his life didn't make sense. So he took it as it came, these days, and this was a chance happening that happened. Because feelings are lengthy and unfounded, and pieces become shards that become the gravel under your feet, and things don't start to matter until you let them take over.

He'd been too preoccupied with the loss of control before realizing he had the power to do whatever he wanted.

But she wouldn't understand that, would she?

"Because," he said, shrugging and struggling. "Because I love you."

It started to rain. After the clap of his words sounded, the clouds released a burst of applause, with the perpetual acclamation from the skies, crying in sudden tremors.

Her hair became flat and wet quickly, sticking to her face like a drowned, shocked rat. The umbrella was too small to protect them. The rain soaked into his t-shirt, dulling the oil stain on his chest, and leaving his skin with goosebumps from the cold.

He smirked at her speechlessness, shifting to stand and shove his hands in his pockets. Her eyes wouldn't let go of him, so he gave her another shrug, because that's all he had.

Then he turned to leave, back to the garage and to the rusted pipes, heart pounding in his ears.

* * *

><p>She followed him. He didn't think she would. He had hoped, maybe, he had scared her away.<p>

He made it to the garage, soaked down to the bone, the hair on his body standing up on end from the frigid temperature. The wind had started blowing on his way back, belting his eyes and nose with blasts of cold water.

He went to the back closet to grab a dry shirt. It was a little big, and had the name 'Joey' on it. It was dusty, but it was crisp and clean and made the hair on his arms fall back down. Now if only he could find some pants.

He heard the side door open minutes later, the garage doors having been closed due to the oncoming storm.

"You just ran away."

He turned from the closet to see Quistis heaving, clothes sticking and hair plastered on her skin. Her glasses had puddles of water in the lenses, and he wondered how she could see.

He crossed his arms and walked around to lean on a car. "I'm a coward, remember?"

She stepped forward, coming into his line of sight better.

"You've never been a coward."

Showed how much she knew about him.

"There's some extra clothes in the back," he said, avoiding looking at her. "They'd be big, but they're dry."

"Was it true?" she said, ignoring him.

He looked down at her. "You're just like a damn cockroach, you know? Always coming back no matter what I do - "

"Was it true?" she repeated, glaring at him.

"What do you think?"

She blinked at him, looking at his eyes then his lips then his eyes again. "I don't know."

"Well, when you figure it out, let me know," he said, turning away to work back on the car he left behind. She grabbed his wrist forcefully and turned him back around. He glanced at her with a raised brow, and she raised one of hers back at him defiantly.

"I'm done with your games, Almasy," she spat. "Tell me the truth."

He stared at her, losing his smirk. He felt seriousness creep up onto the lines of his face, and he didn't really mind. But it wasn't as if he could say the words twice, in fear of everything. He wouldn't let her ruin him again over something as stupid as emotions.

He leaned forward a little, hesitated, then kissed her. He let his hand fall onto her hip as a hand hold, or in case she pulled away, so he'd have a grasp on where he was.

But she didn't move, and she let him kiss her. She let his hand rest on her hip, and she let her hand rest on his chest, where the old oil stain might have been on his discarded shirt.

She tasted like rain and thunderclaps.

* * *

><p>On a Thursday, they met at the bar. She was there before him, of course, and he found her immediately, in the same spot he'd always seen her. He went up to her and leaned on the bar with his elbows.<p>

"Where do you get all those dresses, anyway?" he said in greeting.

"I buy them," she said, voice deliberate. He gave her a look. Then she gave in and said, "Selphie."

He ordered them drinks before he said, "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Why you never wear a dress twice. I swear I haven't seen you wear the same dress before."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Where do they all go?"

She smiled. "Trust me. You'd have to see Selphie's closet to believe me."

He shuddered. "That chick fucking scares me. She's like a chipmunk on cocaine."

At this, Quistis laughed. "She's all natural."

"That's why she's so scary."

"Remind me that I need to lock you in a room with her," she said teasingly.

"Only if you want her to die, sure," he said seriously, finishing off his drink.

She rolled her eyes. "Right."

He stared at her easy smile for a while, until he smirked and asked, "Wanna go somewhere?"

She looked at him, mockingly suspicious. "Where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere," he said in a sweeping, dramatic gesture. "This world is just_ so damn big._"

She let him lead her out of the bar to the outside street. She looked around, confused.

"Where's your grand, white chocobo?"

"Funny," he said. "Wanna see my mansion?"

"Only if it has a fountain in the middle of the drive way."

"Oh, it's even better," he said, as they walked down the cobblestone streets. "It's got cable."

"I think I'm swooning."

"You'll want to stay forever," he grinned.

She looked over to him, and kissed his cheek.

She didn't leave that night, and he gave himself the smallest dream that maybe she would stay.

At least for a while. At least, until the end of his days.


End file.
